Mark Gilroy

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Seahawks to Protest the National Anthem?

Will the Seahawks protest the National Anthem on Sunday?

Will the Seahawks protest the National Anthem on Sunday?

Will the Seattle Seahawks protest the National Anthem? The Huffington Post reports that in a not-very-carefully-guarded secret that, indeed, this Sunday, September 11, 2016, (which just so happens to be the 15th Anniversary of 9/11).

As is the case with Colin Kaepernick’s sit-down turned kneel-down protest of the anthem, members of the Seahawks obviously have the right to peacefully protest the flag, the anthem or anything else they find offensive or lacking as a group or individually. After all, people have died to protect the freedom of speech, which includes freedom of expression.

That said, if the Seahawks follow through with a protest that is divisive and out of proportion and context – I think much special interest dissatisfaction today is myopic and misinformed and malignant – I will exercise my right to not watch a further second of the Seahawks in 2016!

“But Mark, what If the Seahawks make the Super Bowl? You’ve been watching that every year since you were a kid.”

Then February 5, 2017, will be my first year not to watch America’s biggest spectacle since 1969 when Joe Namath and the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts.

Let me throw in one caveat. The Huffington Post headlines the story as a total team protest. But throughout the article, there are indications that it is not a negative protest at all. Wide receiver Doug Baldwin Jr. says in a tweet, “To express a desire to bring people together, our team will honor the country and flag in a pregame demonstration of unity.”

Does that sound like a protest?

Linebacker Bobby Wagner told the Seattle Times that whatever the team decides to do, “it’s not going to be individual. It’s going to be a team thing. That’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals.”

Wagner added that it would be “a big surprise.”

So, if the team’s “surprise” group action ends up honoring flag and country, then the report and my response to the report is much ado about nothing and I will call of my protest that has the NFL and Seattle Seahawks sitting on the edge of the proverbial seat.

5 Stages of Grief for Sports Fans

ducks-fans

This can’t be happening.

What do the 5 stages of grief have to do with sports fans you wonder? Just ask the diehard Wrigley Field denizens and they will provide you with enough angst and anecdote to write a Ph.D. dissertation in clinical psychology.

The five stages of grief were introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the book On Death and Dying (Scribner, 1969). She posited that the stages of grief are universal and cross all socio-ethnic-economic classifications.

Now I know that losing a World Cup match is in no way comparable to the loss of death—though after losing to Germany 7-1 in Rio, there are Brazilians that might disagree—but our team, MY team winning or losing is so palpable … so visceral … so emotional … why shouldn’t the 5 stages of grief apply to sports fans?

Anyone that grew up with ABC Wild World of Sports on Saturday afternoons—back in the blurry days of television when the only channels we got were from the three major networks and maybe one or two local stations—knows the truth of Jim McKay’s words, when he intoned the immortal phrase, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports … the thrill of victory … and the agony of defeat … the human drama of athletic competition.” [Read more…]

Steroids, Blood Doping, and Deflated Footballs

Tom Brady

Deflate-Gate: What did Tom Brady know?

If it wasn’t for steroids, blood doping, and deflated footballs – plus a plethora of well-publicized misbehaviors from adultery to drug abuse to gambling – our sports heroes would still be our heroes.

In a distant past and far away galaxy, reporters would protect the reputation of a raging, self-destructive alcoholic like Yankee great, Mickey Mantle. (Those were his own words.)

The 60s and 70s brought a different brand of reporting that was a mix of a more robust and aggressive investigative journalism with a heaping dose of shock appeal. The “shock” part of that mix exploded first with the internet boom and then went from a hydrogen bomb to a nuclear bomb with the eruption of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and a host of others are Barry-Bonds-level steroid injections for the TMZ-reveal-all world we live in.

The latest scandal to rock the world of sports is the revelation that the New England Patriots used under-inflated footballs in the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, a game which they won, to reach Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona, against the Seattle Seahawks on February 1, 2015. [Read more…]